Criminal Justice and Courts Bill

Lord Purvis of Tweed Excerpts

Monday 21st July 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hope of Craighead (CB)]

My Lords, if I may, I will add a few words in support of the points made by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay of Clashfern, and my noble friend Lord Blair, based on my experience as the senior judge in Scotland, the Lord Justice General. When I held that office, which I held for seven years, there was an upsurge, as happens from time to time, in the carrying of knives, particularly by young people. As the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay, has told us, there are cases where people who carry knives use them in an impulsive reaction to something said or done, resulting in horrific injuries. I spent four years as a prosecutor dealing with these cases.

Sitting as Lord Justice General, one of my responsibilities was to preside over the appeal court dealing with appeals against sentence in cases that had come up through the courts—sometimes through the sheriff court or sometimes through the High Court—where people had been sentenced for carrying knives. We thought that part of our duty in disposing of those appeals was to send out a message, because of the deterrent effect that we hoped that it would have. It was very much about deterrence; sometimes one added much more colourful wording to strengthen the deterrence. We might be quite lenient in the decision, but we would couch it in words that were designed to have an effect and draw the media’s attention, in the hope that they would report what we said and carry the message that the carrying of knives would be likely to lead to a custodial sentence.

Indeed, I remember going on television at the request of the police, who were concerned about the issue, using my authority as Lord Justice General to make that very point. I said that those who went out into the street carrying knives ran the risk that they might be prosecuted and that there was a risk that they might find themselves subjected to a custodial sentence. Of course, I was not cutting across the independence of the judiciary or the discretion that we all exercise; our concern was to get the message across. There is a force in doing that in statute, provided that it is appropriately worded.

I have looked at the wording of this particular clause, which contains fairly strong language, pointing in the direction of judicial discretion. As the noble Lord, Lord Marks, has said, I am concerned about bringing into consideration the first offence, which could be extremely important. But one must not underestimate the power of the deterrent effect coming through the message from a measure of this kind. I was not sure that, as judges sitting in the appeal court, by saying the things that we so often did, we were really getting the message across, which was why I was prepared to make a statement about it on television. I was not sure whether that in itself got the message across, either. But putting across the message and deterring people from getting involved in these things, with dreadful consequences for them and their victims, is immensely important. There is great force in the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Blair, to that effect.

[Lord Purvis of Tweed (LD)]

I intervene on the noble and learned Lord with a degree of trepidation. He rightly gives the experience of Scotland from a most senior position. While this was not at the same time, I served on the Justice Committee in the Scottish Parliament, which took a conscious decision to reject the course being taken with this amendment. Instead, we took the approach of putting more resources into the violence reduction unit in the former Strathclyde police force, and working with those charities for gangs. We found that to be the most effective way in which to communicate the message, rather than an approach of amending legislation, which we were informed by all of those experienced on the ground in those communities would not be the most effective way. I may agree with the noble and learned Lord, but we come to a different conclusion. Would he reflect on that before he concludes his remarks?

[Lord Hope of Craighead]

I am very grateful to the noble Lord for raising that point. Of course, one supports everything that could be done by people on the ground, and there are all sorts of things that could be done. I was trying to get across the fact that I was approached by the police to use my authority, as the senior judge in Scotland, to make the announcement that I did on television in the terms in which I made it.

There is a choice as to whether one trusts the energy and resources of those on the ground to carry the message across, coupled with such statements as the judiciary can make, or whether one has to resort to statute. The point that I am making is that deterrence is crucial in this field and that the more one can deter the carrying of knives and thereby the incidents that follow from the carrying of knives, the better.